Tried and tested ... but why?

As we come to the trial and martyrdom of the Pilgrim(s), it is worth reminding ourselves that Vanity Fair is on the Way, and we are told quite explicitly that any Pilgrim who would get to the Celestial City must pass through the Fair. The fact that Christian and Faithful are ‘passing through’ is, of course to do with the limitations of analogy. In the same way as we never pass on from the Beautiful Palace, so we never pass through Vanity Fair - at least not in this age. We live in both… indeed the fact that we live in Vanity Fair is one of the most compelling arguments for our frequenting the Beautiful Palace.

But that aside, why does the Way pass through such a place? Or put in a less allegorical way: Why does God ordain the persecution and martyrdom of Pilgrims? This is a huge question, and one that we have to come terms with when we look at the experience of the Church in most of the world, and slowly but increasingly, in the UK. Take, for example, the case of Maureen Martin, who last month was accused of gross misconduct and sacked after the Housing Association where she worked claimed her Lewisham Mayoral campaign pledge to promote 'natural marriage' was 'discriminatory'. The reason for dismissal was Maureen’s manifesting her Christian faith on the topic of marriage outside of the workplace. And we’ll get some insight into the plight of the Church elsewhere in the world at our Open Doors / Global Church Weekend, 9-11th September.

But that doesn’t answer the question. Why does the Way pass through such experiences? What does God seek to achieve in the persecution and martyrdom of the Church.

Josef Tson - who we’ve met before in this series - was a pastor in Romania during Ceausescu’s communist regime, under which the Church was systematically persecuted. Tson himself was arrested, imprisoned and ‘interrogated’ by Romania’s secret internal police force, the Securitate. A group of American Christians effectively ransomed Tson, who was in turn exiled from Romania. During his time in the West, he preached ceaselessly, raising awareness of the plight of the church in Eastern Europe… And he wrote a PhD exploring the question of why God takes His Church through persecution and suffering.

He distilled a number answers from his studies in the Scriptures, among them:

1. …for the propagation of the Gospel. Tson argues that the world is built on the foundation of the cross. In part this means that it is designed to be a place of suffering and resurrection. That is the pattern of the cross. A seed that goes into the ground and dies, and therefore produces a harvest (Jn.12:23-26). That is true of Jesus, but because we live in a world shaped by the cross, it is also true of any Christian who suffers and dies; there will be a harvest - other people become Christians. This is an integral part of evangelism, and an unwillingness to submit to this principle will hinder mission (e.g. Acts 9:16).

2. …the defeat of Satan. Our world is an arena of war. But how do we defeat our enemy? The answer in the Bible includes: by suffering and dying. We see a classic statement of this in Rev.12:11, where there is listed three weapons of our warfare: our participation in the Cross of Christ (the blood of lamb); our evangelism (the word of our testimony); and our willingness to suffer martyrdom (they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death). Satan seeks to compel us to live according to his will – i.e. faithless to Christ and characterised by sin - by intimidating us with the threat of suffering and rejection and death. But when we believe in the resurrection of and through Christ, so that we do not love our lives so much as to shrink from death, then Satan is defeated.

3. …the re-imaging of the Christian. The suffering of the Church is a refiner’s fire that, if engaged with faithfully, leads to the purging of sin and the re-forming of Christ’s image in us. Hence the Psalmist’s reflection: ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word… It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees’ (Ps.119:67 & 71) We see the same sentiment in e.g. Rom.5:3-4, where Paul celebrates how God is at work in the midst of our suffering to restore the Character of Christ. There are things about being like Jesus - the Suffering Servant - that we can only learn in suffering service.

4. …the glorifying of God. In Ps.63:3 we read: ‘your love is better than life’. Suffering, and particularly the anticipation of martyrdom, gives us the opportunity to display that we value our relationship with God, and His honour and glory, more than we value even life itself. Martyrdom is the most eloquent sermon, in which we preach: I would rather die than dishonour my Lord. I would rather perish than sully His love. I would rather lay down my life, than deny Him who gave it to me. We are provided a pulpit like no other, from which we can declare to the watching world that infinite worth of the love of our God.

This is at least part of the reason why Bunyan includes the trials and testings of the Pilgrims, and the martyrdom of Faithful at the hands of Vanity Fair as part of their Progress. After all, ‘everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (II Tim.3:12).

Questions to ponder:

Do you think the reasons Tson outlines are sufficiently compelling to help us in our experience of rejection and persecution?

How can we make sure we don’t waste our suffering?

On anticipating Martyrdom

So, it turns out there is a magazine actually called ‘Vanity Fair’. What is that all about? Grim irony? Unhappy coincidence? Studied defiance?

Anyway, back to Christian and Faithful’s plight… Although they ’behaved themselves yet more wisely … with so much meekness and patience that it won to their side … several of the men of the fair’, they learn ‘that the cage nor irons should serve their turn, but that they should die for the abuse they had done’. The two Pilgrims call again to mind what Evangelist had told them, and find strength and courage in their knowing that their suffering has been foretold.

There are clear echoes of Bunyan’s own experience, and the injustice of it, which lends the ring of truth to the behaviour of Christian and Faithful throughout this episode. In his autobiography (Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners), he writes:

Before I came to prison, I saw what was a-coming, and had especially two considerations warm upon my heart; the first was how to be able to endure, should my imprisonment be long and tedious; the second was how to be able to encounter death, should that be here my portion; for the first of these, that Scripture (Colossians 1:11) was great information to me, namely, to pray to God to be "strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness." I could seldom go to prayer before I was imprisoned, but not for so little as a year together, this sentence, or sweet petition, would, as it were, thrust itself into my mind, and persuade me, that if ever I would go through long-suffering, I must have all patience, especially if I would endure it joyfully

[par. 324].

Christian and Faithful commit themselves to the providence of God, but in an interesting paragraph, we are told that while they comforted each other with the thought of martyrdom, each secretly hoped they might have ‘that preferment’. An eagerness to be counted amongst the martyrs may seem strange, even macabre, to us, but it is a common theme thorughout the history of the church.

During the years following the Apostles, as the Church suffered periodic persecutions under the Roman Empire, there was the temptation to think that you weren’t a ‘proper’ Christian unless you were martyred. The Bishops of that period had to work quite hard to convince people that it was possible to be a genuine Disciple without suffering at the very least, imprisonment and torture. They also had to remind their flock that martyrdom wasn’t really martyrdom if you went seeking it, and provoking the authorities to act against the Church.

We have a series of letters from Ignatius, the second Bishop of Antioch, written en route to the Colosseum in Rome at the turn of the second century (107 AD). He repeatedly asks the Christians not to intervene and do anything that might jeopardise his prospect of martyrdom. "I fear your kindness, which may harm me," he wrote to Roman Christians hoping to free him. "You may be able to achieve what you plan. But if you pay no heed to my request, it will be very difficult for me to attain unto God." And that was truly Ignatius's goal: to imitate "our God Jesus Christ" in death. If the Christians at Rome really wanted to do something, they should pray that he would remain faithful.

So the idea that Christian and Faithful both hoped they would be the one martyred isn’t so far from being a possibility. But with true meekness, they commit themselves ‘to the all-wise disposal of Him that ruleth all things…’. Their confidence in the sovereignty of God provides a basis for their hope, and their contentment of the condition they were in. Again, this might feel alien to us, but that might be because none of us have had to face the prospect of our own martyrdom. There is great comfort in knowing that nothing can happen to us that does not come from the hand of our Father. That includes suffering (I Pet.3:17). The truly terrifying thing would be the idea that suffering could come our way that wasn’t in the will of God. Such suffering would be without meaning or purpose.

Christian and Faithful know they are on the path to the Celestial City. They know that path runs through Vanity Fair. They know their experience here is foreknown, and their persecution and martyrdom fore-ordained. And they know that their perseverance to the end is ensured. And like the Apostles of old, they find themselves ‘rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name’ (Acts 5:41).

Questions to ponder:

How long do you think it will be before the Church in Britain is openly persecuted?

How do you think MIE can best prepare us to endure faithfully?

How can it be wrong when it looks so good?

OK - so before we go any further, we need to make sure we understand the name of the town, ‘Vanity Fair’… which is linked to the old-fashioned meaning of ‘vain’ (meaningless or futile), rather than the more contemporary sense of self-idolising that thinks of ourselves more highly than we ought. Although Bunyan would clearly consider such an attitude entirely inappropriate, it isn’t the issue he is exploring here. We get closer to his sense if we remember that the Authorised Version of the Bible launched into the Book of Ecclesiastes with the lament ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity’ (1:2). The NIV renders the same verse in a more modern parlance as ‘Utterly Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!’ We need to make the same shift in vocabulary as we come with Christian and Faithful into the next chapter of their Pilgrimage: Meaningless Market… or perhaps Futility Fair.

But the name we give it is nothing like as important as the reality it conveys. Every fleeting pleasure, every distraction, every entertainment, every indulgence - in short, everything the world has ,is on offer. The Fair stands through all of time, and embraces every culture. Even Christ had been taken from street to street and stall to stall (Heb.4:15). Some of its ware is self-evidently sinful, some seems harmless, some even seems legitimate after a fashion, but all of it is spiritually deadly. It is the world, enamoured with sin, enthralled by frivolity, ensnared by entertainment and distraction. The point is not that everything is ‘depraved’ or obviously evil. It is that ‘this world in its present form is passing away’ (I Cor.7:31), and that those who are engrossed in the things of this world, who live for what this world has to offer, will findthey have invested in something that will not last… that their lives count for nothing. It is futile, meaningless… vanity.

Pilgrims must be in the world, and our discipleship must be played out on this stage. As Bunyan puts it (echoing I Cor.5:10), ‘he that will go to the City, and yet not go through this town, must needs go out of the world’. But it is immediately obvious to all that Christian and Faithful do not belong there. And nor do they have any interest in the merchandise. Initially their disengagement provokes nothing more than amusement; but the situation quickly turns sour. When they refuse to purchase anything but truth (which isn’t on sale!), the Fair turns ugly, ‘some mocking, some taunting, some speaking reproachfully, and some calling on others to smite them’. These two believers, simply by being there, had almost turned the Fair upside down (Acts 17:6). ‘All order was confounded’, and through no fault or provocation of their own, Christian and Faithful find themselves on trial. As they give their statement, they are at first dismissed as ‘bedlams and mad’ or perhaps ‘such as came to put all things into a confusion at the Fair’. They are beaten, imprisoned and left vulnerable to ‘any man’s sport, or malice, or revenge’.

A host of passages lies behind Bunyan’s portrayal of the behaviour of the Towns-folk:

I Peter 4:4, They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you;

Titus 2:7-8, In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

John 15:18-19, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

Bunyan is at pains to show that this is the nature of the world. Christian and Faithful have done nothing to justify their ill-treatment. They have simply acted in a way that is consistent with their confession of Christ as Lord. And yet, that is sufficient to inspire the world’s ire. When Satan is not able to distract us with the ‘fleeting pleasures of sin’, he will just as soon seek to intimidate and bully, imprison and berate. It makes no odds to him. One means is as good as the other in achieving his end of hindering those on the Way.

Many however do not need to be treated so brutally. They are distracted, swallowed up by the Fair, enticed and entrapped, ‘deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures’ (Titus 3:3). Satan has no need to persecute those who are already possessed by a love for all this world has to offer. Those who claim to be pilgrims, but who look and behave no different from those around them in the world, pose him no threat, and cause him no concern.

A Prayer for the Pilgrim in Vanity Fair:

O Lord,

the world is artful to entrap, approaches in fascinating guise, extends many a gilded bait, presents many a charming face.

Let my faith scan every painted trinket, and escape every bewitching snare in a victory that overcomes all things.

In my duties give me firmness, energy, zeal, a devotion to Thy cause, courage in Thy name, love as working grace, and may my life be commensurate with my confession of Christ.

Thy Word is full of promises … May I be rich in its riches, strong in its power, happy in its joy. May I abide in its sweetness, feast on its preciousness, draw vigour from its pages,

that I may have no hunger or desire for this world.

O Lord, increase my faith.

…taken from The Valley of Vision, ‘Faith and the World’

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life

Christian and Faithful enjoy a timely encounter with Evangelist, which as we read it, might strike us as strange. We are used to thinking about evangelists as those who get us started on the Way, perhaps introducing us to Christ, helping us to understand the benefits following Him might bring, and as being instrumental in our conversion. But here he is again, half way through the Pilgrim’s Progress. In part this is simply due to the fact that Evangelist is himself, first and foremost a Pilgrim. He too is on his way to the Celestial City, and so an evangelist will be journeying with those they have played a part in leading to Christ. But Bunyan’s point is more subtle. We have too compartmentalised a view of evangelism. We tie it too firmly and exclusively to the earliest stages of someone’s journey to Christ. But we’ve seen that Evangelist’s Gospel-ministry is much wider, rebuking Christian earlier for listening to Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, re-focusing him on the Narrow Way at key points, and now, encouraging him - and Faithful - in their pilgrimage. Evangelist keeps them in the Way, as well as starting them in it. It is s amuch more dynamic view of salvation, that understands we are being saved, as well as having been saved (e.g. I Cor.1:18).

And of course, his concern for their spiritual well-being doesn’t end once they become Pilgrims. He reminds them, somewhat ominously that they (and we) have many trials to go through if they are to enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Acts 14:22). This is no abstract exhortation… ‘You will soon come into a town that you will by and by see before you; and in that town you will be hardly beset with enemies, who will strain hard but they will kill you; and be you sure that one or both of you must seal the testimony which you hold with blood. But be you faithful unto death and the King will give you a crown of life’.

Evangelist encourages them to remain steadfast, to run in such a way as to gain the prize, to let the Kingdom be always before them. He calls them to courage and perseverance, reminding them that martyrdom will mean they will have ‘arrived at the Celestial City soonest’, and that they will escape many hardships that the other pilgrim(s) will have to endure. ‘Commit the keeping of your souls to God in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator’. This is a very different message to the one we are accustomed to hearing from evangelists. Yet it is far more true to Scripture, and we would do well to remember it as we are sharing our faith with others. We must warn them of the struggles and hardships of following Chist, that the call to discipleship is a call to take up our cross and follow Him (Matt.16:24); it is to recognise that Christ is more to be valued than all the treasures or comforts of this world. Failure here is a dereliction of spiritual duty, and will cause significant problems for those we are seeking to introduce to Christ. Many have turned back because those speaking to them of Christ were simply not honest about the difficulties that lay ahead.

Earlier in the story, when Christian was benefitting from the counsel of more mature Christians and ministers, he was plagued by an impatience to get going. At the Interpreters House, and again at Beautiful Palace, he had to be restrained, bid to stay to learn and experience more that would be to his advantage. It is a sign of Christian’s maturing in his faith and discipleship that he thanks Evangelist, ‘but told him that he would have him speak further to them for their help the rest of the way’. Spiritual growth is evidenced by a developing desire for fellowship and teaching.

There is a pattern in Pilgrim’s Progress that is true to life. Before trial and tribulation there is often a time of especial encouragement. Before his battle with Apollyon, Christian enjoyed the blessings of the Beautiful Palace. Here again, before their entering Vanity Fair, there is - even in the wilderness - strong fellowship, rejoicing at the re-union with old friends, encouragement and exhortation from the Scriptures. They will need to draw on such benefits to endure the spiritual contest that lies ahead.

Questions to ponder:

How does thinking about Evangelist and his ministry change the way you think about the Gospel? …and about evangelism?

How would you encourage someone in the face of their martyrdom? Would you encourage them? …or would you commiserate with them?

All mouth and no trousers...

It is a relatively easy thing to speak of being a Christian, and even at times, to speak as a Christian. If you hang around Church a while, you can soon learn how to do it. It can happen inadvertently, but the danger is that we start to think that because we know how to fit in, and how to sound like one, we must therefore be a Christian. Occasionally there might be an intention to deceive, but more often than not, it just happens… and the person doing it is as deceived (or perhaps well-meaningly confused?) as anyone.

And our sense of what it is to be a Christian these days has fallen to such a low ebb, that if someone says they have become a Christian, we tend to assume that the reality is as they say it is. We’ve already met Discretion who seeks to test the authenticity of any claim to faith. And once we’ve met Talkative we appreciate how valuable such Discretion can be. It turns out that in Bunyan’s day - as in our own - there are those who talk a good game, but whose profession of faith runs no deeper than their tongue! They have an opinion on everything, and are willing to share it, but as Faithful concludes: ‘I saw you forward to talk, [but] I knew you had aught else but notion … you are a man whose religion lies in talk…’ But because it lies only in talk, ‘religion fareth the worse for your ungodly conversation’. The lack of integrity becomes apparent to everyone except themselves, and they end up undermining genuine discipleship in others by their hypocrisy.

And most frustrating of all, such ‘Talkatives’ come to deeply resent any challenge, and insinuation that they might not be the genuine article. They are snide towards those who call their claims into question, and who see the dissonance between their life and their lip. When Faithful pushes the conversation to the question of ‘experience, conscience and God’, when he speaks of faith in a specific Christ, and of holiness and obedience, when he asks: ‘doth your life and conversation testify the same? or standeth your religion in word or in tongue, and not in deed and truth?’, Talkative begins to blush, and then dismisses Faithful as a ‘catechiser’ (!). Talkative believes himself to be a true Christian, deeply resents such searching discussion, and dismisses Faithful as a ‘peevish and melancholy man, not fit to be discoursed with’. He is the kind of person who dismisses authentic discipleship as ‘just your opinion’, and legitimises his own inconsistencies by accusing others of being ‘ready to take up reports and to judge so rashly’. In today’s parlance, ‘Don’t be so judgemental’. His departure puts beyond dispute the spurious nature of his claims to discipleship.

To be fair, there have always been ‘Talkatives’ lurking around Churches. The Apostle Paul had to remind the Corinthians that ‘…the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power’ (I Cor.4:20); and before that, Jesus lambasted the Pharisees as those who ‘do not practice what they preach’ (Matt.23:3).

Christian knows of Talkative from previous dealings, and has learned to keep his distance, to cast not pearls before swine. Christian warns us, with a certain poetic vigour, that ‘he is best abroad; near home, he is ugly enough’. In other words, when you first meet them, or if you only have casual acquaintance, you can easily be fooled. They sound passionate, knowledgeable, serious, and at a superficial level they can look like the real deal. But once you’ve listened carefully (often to what they are not saying), or got to know them, the inconsistencies in their life become too much to bear.

Such as Talkative have never grasped that ‘while we are saved by faith alone, the faith that saves is never alone’ (Luther). …that those who have such genuine faith in Christ are those who hear His words and put them into practise (Matt.7:24-26; 12:50 & 13:20-23). It is not enough that there is ‘a great outcry against sin’, it must be abhorred and repented of. It is not enough to denounce sin, it must be disowned. It is not enough to know the Gospel, it must be believed and trusted in. It is not enough to confess Christ, but - in the words of Faithful - our life must be answerable to that confession.

Genuine disciples react differently to such questions. It may be painful to be asked them, but our response will include conviction, repentance and growth. We will appreciate those who love us enough to take the time and the risk of challenging us where sin is obviously unchecked. Our fellowship deepens, and our commitment to one another grows as we support each other’s growth.

The departure of Talkative is one of the saddest moments in the Pilgrim’s Progress. There is a tragedy about those who seem to understand so much and so little all at the same time. But Faithful is glad he made the effort. He was faithful to warn Talkative and he is ‘clear of his blood, if he perishes’. Small comfort, but comfort nonetheless.

Questions to ponder:

How can we avoid the danger of becoming merely ‘Talkative’ ourselves?

Have you ever been disillusioned by a ‘Talkative’? How did you negotiate that?

Do you think Christian’s attitude to Talkative is a bit harsh? How do you think we should relate to people like this? Can you think of any passages from the Bible that would help you formulate an appropriate response?